Original title: QPrompt Tech support
Here’s the best place to ask questions regarding how to use and make better videos with QPrompt App.
Hi, first of all, thank you very much for this free and great app, keep up the amazing work!
I have one question. Is it possible to import .rtf or word formats? Each time I try I get the error “make sure sofice is installed on your system and linked to”?
Thanks in advance.
Hi @maha29, thank you for your kind words. While it currently isn’t possible to import Word and RTF formatted documents, the reason you see that message is because the feature is currently in development and is not fully disabled in the code.
I don’t know if this will work on all Linux builds, but to be able to use this “hidden ability”, you need to run a Linux version of QPrompt, and have a copy of Libre Office installed that can be opened from the terminal using the soffice command, which is usually default for all installs of Libre Office.
What QPrompt does in the backend is ask Libre Office to convert the document from its original format to HTML, and then processes that further before showing it to the user.
I have no timeline for when will support for these formats be made official. If I can find other ways to support them without relying on Libre Office, I will because this would enable having support on mobile devices as well. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find open source libraries that are compatible with the more modern formats, that aren’t also fully ingrained inside of another complex piece of software.
Thank you for the quick and comprehensive reply.
I forgot to mention that I am running QPrompt in Windows 10.
I have got one more question. Is it possible to save a configuration? What I mean by that is that when I open a new instance I set the “pointers” to none, input new text, enable two of my screens (turn them on in the screens menu) and then save that config.
When I open the saved config again, it only “remembers” the text I had input. Both the pointers and screen settings are back to default.
Thanks again!
Several, but not all, settings are currently saved automatically on application close, on a per-user basis. On Windows, these are saved to the Windows registry.
- Pointer configuration should be retained when you restart the application. If it isn’t retained, you may have found a bug.
- Screen configuration should also be saved in the same way but the functionality has not been implemented yet, as the number of screens connected and their names may vary, thus a more complex backend to save this settings is pending implementation.
Future versions of QPrompt should save some of these parameters to the document being worked on instead of in a per-user basis. I’ve yet to determine which fields should be saved to the file, but in the meantime I’m focusing on getting everything to save on a per-user basis.
Is it still the case that you can’t import .rtf or word docs into Qprompt? I ask as I’m a professional teleprompter operator and I am being forced to use Qprompt instead of my own system due to rules at a hotel my client is using for their event. All clients give me their speeches as word docs. This is pretty standard. What kind of file do I have to convert it to so I can load their copy?
Hi @mmregan,
That’s unfortunate to hear. You should be able to use use any piece of software that you have a license for. I say that as QPrompt’s creator.
To import files in various office formats you’ll need two things:
- An Early Access build of QPrompt v2.0 or v1.2. That is because no final release with this feature has come out yet. That said, most early access builds are fairly stable and the most recent one is rock solid. You can download builds for our most recent Early Access builds at the link bellow:
QPrompt 2.0 EA 14 downloads (2025-10-08): https://www.patreon.com/posts/140793965 - A copy of LibreOffice. This free office suite is used behind the scenes to open office documents and convert them to HTML, the format used by QPrompt. LibreOffice is licensed under the Mozilla Public License Version 2.0, which is a license fairly similar to QPrompt’s GPLv3.
LibreOffice downloads (current): Download LibreOffice | LibreOffice - Free and private office suite - Based on OpenOffice - Compatible with Microsoft
If for some reason you were blocked and a copy of LibreOffice cannot be installed to its standard location, you could install QPrompt and LibreOffice anywhere on the filesystem, including a thumb drive, and then point QPrompt to LibreOffice’s location. To accomplish this:
- Open QPrompt (2.0.0)
- Go to Main Menu > Other Settings > External Tools and Applications
- Click on Browse for LibreOffice, and locate and select LibreOffice’s main executable, generally named
soffice.exe
,soffice.bin
or simplysoffice
.
There also exist a portable version of LibreOffice specifically adapted for use in thumb drives, which can be downloaded here: LibreOffice Portable Stable | PortableApps.com
The license agreement to QPrompt 2.0 Early Access builds is the exact same used for all previous version of QPrompt, so there should be no legal issue with installing the more recent version.
If installing either program were not an option, you could also copy paste the text from Word into QPrompt. Formatting results of copying should be fairly similar. That said, people tend to have slightly better results when they import rather than copy-paste.
I hope this helps. Feel free to ask if you have any further questions.
Javier Cordero,
QPrompt author
Bellow is a screenshot listing all the formats supported by QPrompt’s 2.0, most of which are imported through LibreOffice. Formats include: DOC, DOCX, RTF, ODT, ABW, Pages, Markdown, plain text, and HTML.
I appreciate your response, but I will be using computers owned by the venue the conference is at and so I have no control over installing other software onto them. Also, time is a factor. I need to be able to sit down and edit multiple scripts for multiple days quickly and efficiently, and not being able to just open word docs or .rtfs is a real handicap.
I think I should clarify: Once LibreOffice has been configured, you open office files from QPrompt as you would files in any other file format. The conversion happens in the background; it only needs to be setup to occur when LibreOffice is not in its standard location.
As I’ve also stated in my first reply, if you can’t install new software onto the venue computer, you could install the apps onto a flash drive. That way you won’t change anything about the venue’s computer.
Now, I recognize that depending on an external program is sub-optimal, and that installing to a non-standard location demands some technical knowledge. I’m just sharing some solutions that work today.
I appreciate you trying to give me all the options, but the fact is I’m going to sit down at the computer and immediately start formatting multiple scripts for multiple days. I won’t have time to format some software I have no knowledge of off a flash drive. We’ll have to stick with cut and paste.
Understood. If you have further questions regarding QPrompt, let us know. I’m happy to answer.